Hotel Marketing Conundrum and 9 Other Top Travel Stories This Week

Throughout the week we are posting original stories night and day covering news and travel trends, including the impact of coronavirus. Every weekend we will offer you a chance to read the most essential stories again in case you missed them earlier.

Hotel Marketing in U.S. May Be Easy for This Summer But Then What?: Hotel rooms and short-term rentals will sell themselves this summer as U.S. travelers rush to take long-delayed vacations. Bookings look strong enough through the fall for industry leaders to think the recovery is real and lasting.

Disney Parks Plan to Greet Returning Guests With New Digital Tech for Phones: “Interactions instead of transactions.” “Service discovery instead of service recovery.” “Screens that complement rather than dominate experiences.” Those are some of the ideas animating tech executives at Disney this year. Other travel brands could learn a thing or two.

Hilton CEO’s Plea to States: Open Up for Business Meetings — Now: Hilton CEO Chris Nassetta lending some clout to this latest U.S. Travel Association campaign could sway straggling states to relax their restrictions on business meetings, but nothing moves fast in a pandemic.

Skift Acquires the Iconic Hotel Industry Newsletter Daily Lodging Report: Concise, no-nonsense insights delivered straight to your inbox — that has been the promise of Daily Lodging Report for 25+ years, and we at Skift will continue to deliver on that.

Accor Expands in Dubai Despite Middle East’s Slowdown on Hotel Development: Accor’s push into the Middle East is a needed shot in the arm for the region’s tepid pace of hotel development. But success hinges on mega-projects and events in markets like the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia actually panning out.

Flight School Owned by a Retired Marine Is On a Mission to Help End the Pilot Shortage: As the travel recovery looks to ramp up for summer travel, a pilot shortage isn’t helping any. The time to invest in pilots is at the pilot training level by making it easier to get loans, financing, and scholarships.

Recovering Cruise Industry Will Battle Temptation to Revert to Old Status Quos: Big cruise is back, even as Florida and Texas turn cruising vaccination requirements into a political football. With industry giants eager to start making money again, it’ll be a tough road ahead, from rebuilding consumer confidence to sailing to where vaccines are lagging. Is this restart premature?

Why Outlier Hyatt Won’t Focus on Asia for Future Growth: U.S. hotel companies like Hyatt may not get the best financial deals when they look to expand in Asia, but the growth opportunities are too great to ignore — especially when properties are only more and more expensive to build in the U.S. What’s behind Hyatt’s decision to go another way?

Expect Climate Change to Finally Drive More Corp Travel Decisions Post-Pandemic: Expect to see more companies ramp up the decarbonization of their travel programs as sustainability takes on an even higher profile.

Sabre Sale of Tech Firm Airpas Aviation Gives Opening to Private Equity: Sabre wins from the sale of tech vendor Airpas because it represents more progress in a multi-year streamlining of its portfolio. The airline industry might also win if Airpas’s new merger with another tech company represents a wave of better cost management tools.